your fonder heart, half lit in the half light
by whatbecomesofus
Summary: What would you do if you met the other you? In which there is a free ticket to space and a fine line between what is and what should have been.
1. could have had it all

Based on Mike Cahill's_ Another Earth._ You don't need to watch it to understand what's going on here, but I strongly recommend doing so anyway because it's one of the most gorgeous films I've ever seen.

But maybe you should at least check out the trailer first! You know, to get in the mood. It can be found at http : / / youtu. be / N8hEwMMDtFY (remove spaces)

Done? Okay, on to the fic!

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><p><strong>Fandom(s): The Big Bang Theory  Another Earth**

**Title:** your fonder heart, half-lit in the half-light (1/2)

**Ship(s):** Sheldon/Penny, Sheldon/Amy

**Rating/Warnings:** T / spoilers for 5.10 "The Flaming Spittoon Acquisition"

**Word Count:** 3, 542

**Summary:** What would you do if you met the other you? In which there is a free ticket to space and a fine line between what is and what should have been.

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><p><strong>chapter one: could have had it all (better luck next time)<strong>

* * *

><p>It's been a year since the Tallis broadcast. A little longer than that since Penny caught her first glimpse of the other Earth, in the sky above Sheldon's shoulder. Roughly two since Sheldon <em>Homo sapiensed up (down?) and asked Amy to be his girlfriend.<em>

Not that Penny's, like, _counting _or anything. They're her friends so it's important she keeps their milestones in mind. And if sometimes she looks at them and wonders when the hell they'll finally break up, it's only because she still can't wrap her brain around the fact that anyone's willing enough to be _in an actual relationship. _With _Sheldon Cooper. _And vice versa.

She brings it up with the guys on occasion, the impossibility of it all. But ever since First Contact, they'd all been more relaxed about what was possible and what wasn't.

"Hey, if there's a whole other Earth up there, exactly like ours, with the exact same people in it," Howard or Leonard would tell her, gesturing to the ceiling, "that blows everything we know out of the water. I totally buy Sheldon growing a heart."

And it's strange, how Penny's gotten used to seeing a mirror image of her planet on the horizon but still finds it surreal when Sheldon and Amy go on dates. With _touching _and everything. It's strange how she's the only one.

Now they're all crowded around the television set in 4A, just like they were a year ago. Fireworks explode onscreen; the SETI Institute is celebrating the anniversary of First Contact, the day its director heard her own voice speaking to her over the transmission waves. The guys are once again embroiled in a heated discussion about how this proves quantum entanglement once and for all, while Amy and Bernadette nod. Penny gave up at _quantum, _but that's okay because the intensity of the conversation means she's got the champagne all to herself- or, at least, what little champagne Raj hasn't polished off.

And then Sheldon suddenly asks her, point-blank, "What do _you _think, Penny?"

That's when it all goes to shit. Sheldon-without-Amy would _never _have asked for her opinion on matters of science. Sheldon-without-Amy would never have made this, the latest in a long line of awkward overtures to move them out of the small-talk zone, to regain the balance they'd lost since an official girlfriend had been introduced into the fold.

Beside him, Amy kind of freezes up on the couch, eyes narrowing just the slightest bit. He's Sheldon-with-Amy who cares about Penny, and that somehow makes things _way _more complicated than they have any right to be, and Penny's a good friend, damn it, and she's buzzed and there's really no good time to tell them so she may as well tell them now-

"I won the contest," she says. "I'm going."

* * *

><p>This is how Penny sees Earth 2 for the first time:<p>

She's clattering down the stairs, Sheldon hot on her heels, chastising her about failing to drive him to his date with Amy last night. Penny grits her teeth against the killer headache. Of all the mornings to run out of coffee.

"Sweetie, I was _drunk," _she explains yet again. "I wouldn't have managed to _get in the car, _much less _drive."_

"That is immaterial," he snaps. Texas has crept back into his voice, pitched with anger. "We had an agreement. You were perfectly aware that you would be chauffeuring me to my destination at 6:30 P.M. Despite this prior knowledge, you chose _not_ to abstain from your typical debauchery, and, as a consequence, I was unable to keep my engagement. Penny, that was the _height _of irresponsibility, even for someone such as yourself-"

"I'm not your fucking _chauffeur!"_ she screams as she bursts through the doors. She whirls around to face him, hungover and _so _not in the mood to hear words like _engagement_ come out of his lips, not when she'd barricaded herself in her apartment last night and downed Jack Daniels while he'd knocked and knocked and knocked and- "Jesus _Christ, _Sheldon, I am not-"

And there it is, hovering in the clear sky behind him. Bigger than the moon, although only slightly less silvery, with its swirls of white and blue and green. Her eyes widen. The rest of her sentence dies in her throat.

He turns around to see what she's looking at. She hears an intake of breath, although it's quickly stifled, like all his other displays of emotion are. She watches the heavens, his lean back and sharp shoulders still in her view. And she'll never be able to separate him from this moment. She'll never be able to erase this image from her mind. She'll never forget the silence and the early morning light, how they enfold Sheldon Cooper as he gazes up at another Earth.

* * *

><p>After the initial shock of Penny's announcement fades, Bernadette hugs her, all happiness and excited squeals and warmth. Amy smiles, tight-lipped but genuine. Leonard, Howard, and Raj sputter congratulations and berate her good-naturedly for not telling them she'd joined in the first place.<p>

Sheldon doesn't move a muscle from his spot, although she can see his knuckles whitening around his virgin Cuba Libre. "You are, I presume, cognizant of the perils of interstellar travel," he says.

"Well, we _do _have to attend training sessions-" she begins.

He cuts her off. "All the training in the world will be of negligible assistance if the ship were to encounter technical difficulties. I must categorically state that I have no faith in the spaceworthiness of United Space Ventures' Saturn V rocket model; they are a commercial _civilian _outfit, after all."

Leonard sighs, rubs the bridge of his nose. "Hey, Sheldon, are you by any chance familiar with the term 'wet blanket'?" he asks. "Because, right now, you're dripping on the floor."

"Forget _dripping," _mutters Howard. "This is a regular Noah's Flood."

Sheldon ignores them. He speaks only to Penny, but his eyes don't quite meet hers, focusing instead on a point by her right ear. "If the ship were to founder, and you were to die-"

"For God's sake, man!" Raj yells.

"_- if _you were to die," Sheldon persists, "your body would burn up on reentry, or remain lost in space. How, then, will we bury you?"

Penny recognizes this unforgivable brusqueness for what it is. He is concerned. That great big mind of his is reviewing all possible outcomes and what to do in case of the least desirable one. He will observe the proper rites, and he will do everything in his power to inject what order he can into a universe that he found out long ago he cannot control.

In the time before, Penny would have let herself be moved by this.

But the tension in the room is palpable and Amy's strung tighter than a harp string and life can never be sweet or easy and _what's the other me doing now?_

So Penny tilts her head, forcibly catching Sheldon's gaze in hers. There is only the two of them and the sound of the forgotten television and the slow bob of his Adam's apple.

"Don't worry about me," she tells him, in the most deliberate tone she can muster. He has another girl in his life to worry about, now. "I don't mind going out with a bang."

And it's true. Anything to be more than Penny. Anything to be more than a washed-up actress in a dead-end waitressing job. Anything to be more than a girl in love with her friend's boyfriend. She will be fine. She will soar into the stratosphere. She will get her ass killed, if need be. She will give herself up to the stars and the fire.

* * *

><p>This is how Sheldon drafts the Relationship Agreement: he invades Penny's apartment and asks her what girlfriends do.<p>

"Oh, I don't know, sweetie…" she murmurs over the rim of her wine glass. "What did your mom do for your dad?"

"Penny, the dynamic my parents shared was a far cry from an illustrious example of a healthy and functional relationship."

"Right, and a document that needs to be notarized isn't."

"Sarcasm?"

"You're improving." She stretches, her shirt riding up over her abdomen. His eyes trail on the exposed skin and she hastily slumps back down to cover up. Stories would have neater endings if the hero didn't peek all the damn time.

"Well," she says, drawing out the syllable, thinking back on the guys she's loved. Or thought she loved, anyway. "Your girlfriend is there for you when you need her. She helps you."

His pen scratches furiously across the clipboard. "Like drive me to work or to the comic book store when Leonard is being an appalling and unreliable mess of a human being?"

She almost chokes on her wine. "Um- yeah. And she understands you. She knows how you like things."

"For example, my food preferences and the importance of my spot?"

"Got it in one."

He nods, continues writing. His fingers are long and slender and there's something about the way they _curl _that makes Penny feel, all of a sudden, very alone. So because of that, maybe, there's a hint of wistfulness when she speaks again.

"And even if you guys fight and annoy each other a lot, you always work things out in the end because you want to stay together. She sticks with you no matter how weird you get. She takes care of you when you're sick-"

"Does she sing _Soft Kitty?" _The pen has stilled in midair.

Penny has to suppress the urge to close her eyes. "Only if you want her to, sweetie."

Sheldon frowns at his notes. In the ensuing silence, Penny's heart caves in with dread. She almost expects him to remark, all brilliant and smart-alecky, something along the lines of how _You know, it occurs to me that these social conventions are insert-big-words-meaning-similar to the things you insert-big-words-meaning-do for me exclamation point. _And then she would snort and banter and dodge and parry and breathe away the sharpness digging into her chest.

But perhaps even Sheldon Cooper is not that dense. Or that cruel. He stands up. He thanks her for her time. He leaves her apartment.

* * *

><p>"You drink too much," Raj tells her, sooty and slurred.<p>

She blinks. "That's rich, coming from you."

There's a six-pack from the convenience store at her side and there's Raj sitting on the curb outside her apartment building, flushed face turned to the night sky, to the other Earth that hangs in it. He'd obviously gotten sloshed in 4A and clambered out for a bit of fresh air.

"Do you think," he says, "that the other me can talk to women?"

It's the way he sounds. Distant, but also kind of sad. It makes Penny want to open a bottle of beer right here, right now.

"Do you want me to find out?" she asks gently.

He looks up at the constellations. All the stars he's known and mapped, now sharing the space above with this new satellite that hadn't been his for as long.

"No," he replies at last, shaking his head. "I won't be able to take it either way. Don't tell me anything. I'm not ready."

Penny shrugs. "Okay."

* * *

><p>Howard is less shy about his dreams.<p>

"Maybe the other me isn't Jewish," he gushes excitedly over Thai takeout. "Maybe the other me has a personal harem- with the other Bernadette as chief concubine, of course…"

"Unlikely," counters Sheldon. "Calculations would suggest that Earth 2 has been identical to ours in every possible way- until the point of discovery, when we learned of each other's existence, shattering the mirror. There is a new reality in place, which is still a reflection, however mangled and distorted, of the old original one. From that point onwards, our actions may have begun to deviate from those of our mirror selves in small ways, but certainly not to the extent that you are suggesting."

Penny furrows her brow. She's promised Amy and herself to stay away from Sheldon, and that includes not taking his bait, but curiosity's eating her up. "What about the whole many-universes thing?" she presses. "What about that one where you're made out of cotton candy?"

"I do _not _want to know, I do not _want_ to know," Leonard chants under his breath.

"Earth 2 is not a parallel dimension, Penny. It is a mirror planet," Sheldon says. He pauses, giving her a fleeting, speculative look, chopsticks inches away from his mouth. "But I am pleased that you remembered."

She smiles at him. It's not her usual dazzling grin or her take-that-Sheldon smirk; it's soft but genuine, because even though she rather enjoys Amy and Bernadette's company she has missed these quiet moments when it's just her and her boys.

Perhaps Sheldon feels the same. He smiles back. It's twitchy and reticent, because Sheldon is twitchy and reticent in all possible dimensions, but it's still a mirror image of hers.

* * *

><p>But before all that it's months ago and in the aftermath of the Fifth Great Prank War, Amy's standing ill-at-ease in Penny's apartment mumbling about the social impropriety of her boyfriend barging into another girl's bathroom with a fake knife, <em>Psycho-<em>style, while aforementioned girl's in the shower.

"I remain confident that Sheldon's feelings for you are strictly on the platonic level and that you would never betray me-" Swallow. Pause. And Penny's about to throw up because she's never in a million years expected to be having _this _conversation with Amy Farrah Fowler, and maybe it's all a sick joke, just another diabolical bazinga although Sheldon's already conceded defeat, but Amy continues speaking and oh _God _it's real, this is really happening- "While I respect that you and Sheldon have history as friends, surely it would not be viable to ignore the present for the sake of a remembered past. It is, in fact, emotionally unhealthy-"

Penny kind of wants to argue that Sheldon's never _been _emotionally healthy, wouldn't know emotionally healthy if it kicked him in the balls, but Amy's fists are clenched at her sides like she's prepared for a fight and even though her face is as unreadable as ever, there's a hint of entreaty in the way she sort of shies away from Penny's gaze.

_Please understand, _are the unspoken words that hang in the air. _You are gorgeous and perfect and I've never been loved by anyone my whole life. I am your friend and I value you, but for all my talk about dismissing the past I am also still the teenager who spent Saturday nights at home. You are entropy, you are a supernova, you can draw anyone into your chaos. That's just what you do. I don't begrudge you that. But please just give me this once._

Penny imagines herself telling Amy, _He was mine first. _She imagines herself shouting that into the bespectacled girl's face. _He was my friend before he was your boyfriend. I loved him first._

Instead, she takes a deep breath. "I'll tone it down," she promises Amy.

Unlike Sheldon, Penny has always known that she can't control the universe.

* * *

><p>It's her last night in Pasadena. She's leaving for the Mojave Desert tomorrow for the training sessions. That's right; she's gonna train to be an <em>astronaut. <em>Take _that, _Omaha. Her face is plastered all over newspapers and television screens, lauded as one of those who won a free ticket to the other Earth. She's famous. It's not exactly like her girlhood dreams of stardom, but she's _going _to the stars, which is even better.

"To Penny," says Leonard, raising his glass and his voice over the music in the bar, "and to her first civilian space flight!"

"_Civilian space flight!" _she echoes, squealing. "That sounds so _glamorous!"_

"A common misconception," Sheldon snorts as the others clink their glasses together while he holds on to his can of Diet Coke for dear life. "In order to be a cosmonaut, one needs to undergo a rigorous fitness regimen and the unpleasant process of acclimatizing to zero gravity-"

She bares her teeth. "Shut up, Sheldon."

Amy and Bernadette are nowhere to be found. Penny would have liked to see them at her farewell bash, but they're holed up in their respective labs. It's just Penny and the boys, and there's this niggling thought at the back of her mind that _this _is the way it should be. At the beginning, she'd only had Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj. Now, here, at the end of her old life, it feels right that they're the ones she's saying goodbye to. Full circle. 360 degrees.

Well, look at that, she's learned a thing or two from these geeks after all.

"What did you write?" Howard asks. "In your winning essay?"

She squirms. She'd poured her soul out onto the keyboard, all of it, even the dregs. It's too personal, too much _hers _to share with anybody else. "The usual." She shrugs, breezy and unaffected. "I wanted to see what's out there. I wanted to matter. You know- the kind of corny stuff people usually write for contests like that."

"I beg to differ," says Sheldon.

Penny bites her tongue and she's seconds away from snapping at him because god_damn_it, Sheldon, why do you have to make everything so difficult-

"Nothing about you is usual," he says, so quiet and low that she almost mistakes it for the music pumping through the speakers.

And, no, that's unfair. He doesn't get to do this. Not after all the pranks and the silly fights and the little moments and the car rides and him choosing Amy anyway-

Penny takes a swig of tequila.

And another.

And another.

And another.

* * *

><p>In the essay she wrote, there's a part that goes something like:<p>

_When I was nineteen years old, I ran away from Nebraska to chase after a dream. Instead, I crashed into real life. There's a whole history there, about mopping floors and flirting for tips so I could pay the bills and putting up with asshole boyfriends one after the other. _

_Then one morning I looked at the sky and saw another Earth, and I thought about how much of the universe I hadn't seen, and I thought about my laundry and last week's failed audition and cheap tasteless dinners and hanging out at my neighbors' place because I had nowhere else to go._

_And I thought: not this._

* * *

><p>Her head's a mess and she gasps in night air. The alley wall scrapes her palms and the liquor's burning down nerve endings she's never even known she has.<p>

"A hangover would be an auspicious beginning to your interstellar career." There's a beat, a snooty pause, and then, "That was sarcasm, by the way."

"You're really getting the hang of it," she snipes. She wonders why he followed her outside. She wonders many things as Earth 2 gleams in the black above his head. The bar's lurid neon sign sends slices of light into his ocean eyes.

_Do you love me, up there? _she wants to ask him. _Do you love me, on the other Earth?_

But in the end she goes with, "If you met yourself- Sheldon 2.0, I mean- and I'm still not over the fact that there's _two _of you running around, that's a pretty scary idea-" She falters. She's rambling. "Anyway, what would you say to the other you?"

He regards her quietly. She can practically _see _the wheels turning in his brain. She's expecting some long-winded answer about physics bla bla bla Nobel Prize, but, instead-

"What are_ you_ going to say, Penny?"

"To me?" She shrugs. "Maybe just… better luck next time."

* * *

><p>And later they're standing outside her door, just the two of them because an inebriated Leonard's accompanied some smoky-eyed artist type back to her place- and, <em>seriously, <em>Leonard, picking up chicks at your ex-girlfriend's farewell party, stay classy-

Penny fishes out her keys from her purse and works it into the lock. The door swings open.

"Well." She looks up at Sheldon. "I guess this is goodbye."

He nods.

"I bet you'll miss me," she tries to joke, but it falls as flat as a chord plucked on an out-of-tune guitar string.

"Lately-" His voice wavers. He swallows, and tries again. "Lately there has been an alteration in the way you treat me, coinciding with the shift in mine and Amy's paradigm. Lately, I find that I am always missing you, even when you're around."

Penny did not ask for this. She did not ask for Sheldon to finally get a clue, here at the end of all things. She did not ask for this endless wanting, this all-consuming need to reach out and close the space between them. She has only ever asked for grace, all her life.

"Good night, Sheldon," she says, stepping into her apartment.

For a moment she thinks there's something like heartbreak on his face, but by then she's already closing the door, blocking him from view.


	2. opportunity and mystery

It is done! Thank you, everyone, for the warm and encouraging reviews!

Disclaimers out of the way first: the book Sheldon references is a_ Discworld_ novel, _The Last Hero_ by Terry Pratchett, and the graphic novel series _Sandman_ is by Neil Gaiman. As with _Another Earth_, I suggest that you check these titles out. They are stunning.

On to part two and conclusion!

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><p><strong>Fandom(s): The Big Bang Theory  Another Earth**

**Title:** your fonder heart, half-lit in the half-light (2/2)

**Ship(s):** Sheldon/Penny, Sheldon/Amy

**Rating/Warnings:** T / none

**Word Count:** 3, 914

**Summary:** What would you do if you met the other you? In which there is a free ticket to space and a fine line between what is and what should have been.

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><p><strong>chapter two: opportunity and mystery (what else, what new, what now)<strong>

* * *

><p>A lot of the other winners grew up in the big cities. They profess themselves bewildered by the vastness of the Mojave, by its sprawling sands and craggy mountain ranges and windswept Joshua trees. They turn to Penny, Pasadena girl, as if she, too, will understand.<p>

"I like it," she says with a shrug. "A little bit."

What she doesn't tell them is that something about this rugged and desolate terrain makes her think of home. She bolted the first chance she got, but she still dreams about Nebraska almost every night; there are mornings when she wakes up in cramped, messy 4B and her eyes fill with illogical tears because she'd been expecting the sweet scent of hay and the sunrise breaking out over the plains, mist-laced in the cold dawn.

She's never once considered going back. Her parents' farm, wide and open as it is, is not big enough to hold her dreams.

But the Mojave is. The dry landscape is dotted by sporadic kaleidoscopes of color, by wildflowers and cacti and mineral veins. Penny flies over it in training. The plane cuts through the air in parabolic arcs and swooping dives, and, for thirty seconds, she is floating, she is weightless in this arid desert with its surprising bursts of beauty and life.

"I dunno," she once blurts out to Bernadette, over the phone, "this whole experience- this whole place- it kinda reminds me of Sheldon."

And Bernadette, who has always been razor-sharp perceptive under that sweet exterior, clucks her tongue.

"Oh, Penny," she sighs.

* * *

><p>Seriously, though, zero-g? It's a bitch. No wonder they call that stupid plane the vomit comet.<p>

* * *

><p>Sheldon visits, which is weird.<p>

Penny shakes her head at the crew members mouthing "Boyfriend?" and she takes him to her favorite place, a spot on the cliffs that provides a spectacular view. It's sunset and the Mojave is all sand dunes and rocky outcrops in the red-gold light. Earth 2 crests above the horizon, filling the dusty pink sky, a huge blue-and-white globe surrounded by the first faint stars that have emerged.

"What's up, Sheldon?" she asks.

He wastes no time on preliminaries. "I believe that Amy and I have terminated our relationship."

Her pulse shouldn't flutter with trepidation and what suspiciously feels like hope, but it does, anyway. "Um, why?"

"She informed me that she requires 'space.'"

Penny can practically hear the quotation marks curling around that last word. "That means she just needs some time to think about things. It's not officially over."

"Oh. I see." But he doesn't. She can tell that he doesn't. Most of the vagaries of the human experience are still beyond the reach of _Homo novus. _He dismisses the matter as quickly as he does things that stump him, like Radiohead. "She asked for space. I thought of you."

Jesus _Christ. _What can a girl say to _that?_

Fortunately, he doesn't let her respond. Instead, he keeps his eyes- almost sapphire now, in the sun's dying rays- fixed on the other Earth. Penny thinks about the staggering amount of desert they're standing on, and then about its twin up there, beyond this sky, her sky. She feels very small all of a sudden.

"I read a book once," says Sheldon, voice hinting at gravel and his native Texas, "about a group of heroes who attempted to slay the gods. When the gods asked them why, one of the heroes answered that it was because somewhere, someone must have gotten to the edge of the world and seen all the other worlds out there, and that aforementioned someone must have wept because there was only one lifetime. 'So much universe, and so little time…'"

"No one should live forever, Sheldon," she tells him quietly.

He raises his chin in defiance. "And why not?"

"If you know you're going to die one day, then…" She gestures at the panorama of land and color and drifting satellites. She is not a poet or a scientist. She doesn't have the words. But she tries, anyway; she's been trying her whole life. "Then this moment will never be as beautiful as it is now. And that's something, isn't it?"

She steels herself for scholarly derision. It doesn't come. She glances at him, wondering what has brought on this uncharacteristic silence.

He is staring at her, wide-eyed and statue-still, with the same intensity that he aims at his equation-ridden whiteboards. It's like he's trying to decode the enigma of her. And Penny wonders why out of all the boys it has to be this one who sees her as more than a ditzy blonde or a sex object or a potential conquest, but as a person, as an annoyance, as a friend. She wonders why it has to be him, here and now, in the swirling sands of the Mojave, in the shadow of the other Earth.

"The hero was mistaken, anyway," Sheldon drawls- and, yes, it _is _a drawl. The flat terrain and the forever horizon is calling out to them both, reminding them that for all their California affectations they are still children of the Great Plains. "That planet up there in the sky proves it. There are mirrors of you and me. You get another life."

_Is it better than this one? _Penny muses. _How many duplicate Earths until you can get a happy ending?_ But out loud she says, "God, I need a drink."

"You drink too much, Penny," he remarks.

_You made me an alcoholic, Sheldon. _The thought sears across her mind, white-hot as a solar flare. She could burn with the grief of it.

* * *

><p>And then there is launch, and orbit, and shudders biting into the mechanism as the stars slip away from under her feet. Clicks and hisses resound throughout the vast depths of space. The globe spins before her, looking exactly the same as the one she just left. The ship slices into the atmosphere, and Penny grips the edges of her seat as they make planetfall.<p>

* * *

><p>But prior to that, though, there is a phone call to Amy.<p>

"You have to give him a chance," Penny tells her. "I know neither of you has done this before, but, yeah, relationships are hard. I've been there. You have to, like, know the difference between what's worth fighting about and what's worth fighting for."

"Why didn't you fight for Leonard?" Amy asks, cutting as quick to the heart of the matter as if Penny's life were a lab brain ripe for dissection.

And Penny can't tell Amy that she's been holding out for something else. Not Sheldon. Not even sex that's more than just awkward fumbles and apologies and a man touching her like he can't believe she's real- worship gets tiring, after a while. She still doesn't know what she wants, but it's definitely not this. Something else. Something _more._

Amy won't understand. Amy is successful and happy in her career, following the path that she's mapped out. Amy has never marched at high school graduation with back straight and head held high even though her brother's face was all over the news after the cops busted him for dealing meth the night before. Amy has never accepted a diploma in front of a whispering crowd and thought, _I'm getting out of here._

So Penny answers, "There were just too many things to fight about."

* * *

><p>On the day of take-off, she receives text messages from both Sheldon and Amy, thanking her for the role she played in helping them fix their relationship. Amy's text is warm; she even calls Penny "bestie" again.<p>

Sheldon's gratitude is terser. Perfunctory, even. But, like Amy, he wishes her luck on her voyage. He says, _May you sail a gentle sea._

He says, _May the other me recognize all that you are and all that you have accomplished. You, and all versions of you._

* * *

><p>"Whoa," breathes Penny.<p>

"Whoa," breathes the other Penny.

"This is-"

"- _weird."_

* * *

><p>Other Penny is neither waitress nor actress. She cleaned up her manuscript and it's now being developed as a movie in this California.<p>

"A coming-of-age chick flick," she says. "A bit sappy. My next one will be more serious. I have some ideas."

Penny nods, half-expecting the girl in front of her to nod as well. _Seriously, _it's like looking into a mirror. And it _is, _in a way.

Except that there's a ring on Other Penny's finger. It's not a typical-looking engagement band; the stone is white diamond, true enough, but it's cut in a strange flowy pattern and set in gold so pale that it almost resembles silver. It curls around Other Penny's fourth digit like a flower, or perhaps sea-foam.

Penny gulps, staring, afraid to ask who it is.

Other Penny follows her gaze. "Oh." She laughs self-consciously, wagging her hand so that the diamond catches the light. "Nenya. One of the Three. The Ring-"

"- of Water," Penny finishes, because you don't hang around geeks for the better part of seven years without picking up a geek-fact or two.

"Yeah," says Other Penny. She bites her lip. "Listen, I don't know what's going on in the other planet, but it's obvious that some things are different because _you're _not wearing one, but I think you should know that here-"

Three knocks, on the door of this 4B. "Penny."

Time seems to freeze.

* * *

><p>On this world, they call Penny's Earth Earth 2.<p>

"It just shows," says Other Leonard, "how egocentric human beings are, in all possible dimensions."

"For the last time, Leonard," snaps Other Sheldon, "Earth 2 is _not _a separate dimension. It is a mirror planet."

And it's just- it's just really _bizarre, _okay. Penny still can't get over the fact that she's sitting in the living room of another 4A with identical versions of her and her friends. She can't get over the fact that a few hours ago the door was opened and, here, on a different planet, she was looking straight at the guy she never wanted to fall in love with.

Other Penny and Other Sheldon are sitting on the couch (Other Couch?), knees touching. Other Sheldon makes no effort to move away. Every once in a while, Other Penny catches her gaze and grimaces as if slightly embarrassed, slightly apologetic.

"Are you staying for dinner?" Other Howard asks. He's leaning forward eagerly, his eyes darting back and forth from her to her twin as if his wildest fantasies have come true.

Yep, Howard is a sleazeball in all possible dimensions- on all mirror planets, _sorry, _both Sheldons.

"They're expecting me back at the SETI Institute," says Penny. "My ride should be along in a while. There's a big welcome party, or whatever. I'd have loved to see how this Szechuan Palace compares to mine, though."

"I believe that the difference would be in all probability negligible," Other Sheldon pipes up. "Calculations would suggest that-"

"Don't start about broken mirrors again," both Pennys warn, voices identical and in sync.

Other Leonard and Other Howard burst into laughter, while Other Raj grins.

"This is so _freaky," _says Other Leonard, shaking his head in smiling disbelief.

Other Sheldon huffs, affronted as Sheldon Cooper will always be when his intellect is the butt of jokes. "While I disapprove of the slang, I must agree that I find Mirror Penny's presence here disturbing. I am still half-convinced that it will rupture the space-time continuum."

"You've been watching too much _Doctor Who," _Other Penny tells him, rolling her eyes. But there is fondness there.

That's what strikes Penny the most. As Other Leonard and Other Howard quiz her on their mirror selves, she does her best to answer, but she keeps glancing over at Other Sheldon and Other Penny. She notices the way they lean in close as they converse in low voices, shoulders pressed up together, hands brushing. She notices the way Other Penny scrunches her nose before teasingly nipping Other Sheldon's ear, the way Other Sheldon's eyes flutter at the contact even as he twitches in indignation.

_I wish you could see what I see now, _she thinks, sending the message through stars and atmosphere to her own Sheldon, the Sheldon that isn't hers. _This is what we could have had. This is what we could have been._

* * *

><p>She gets a glass of orange juice from the fridge (Other Fridge?). She almost drops it when she realizes the mirror version of Sheldon has snuck up behind her.<p>

He even smells the same. Whiteboard marker ink and fabric softener and soap. The same combination of scent that fills her with longing, that she sometimes catches phantom whiffs of even when he isn't around.

Other Sheldon clears his throat. "If I may inquire…"

"Yes?" Penny arches an eyebrow.

"What is our paradigm- that is- on your planet- are you and the other me- are we-" He falters, facial muscles doing that spasming thing they do when he's out of his element. Sheldon Cooper, always awkward. Always dear to her, on all possible Earths.

She shakes her head. "In the life I know, sweetie, you're still with Amy."

He pales, like it's not what he wanted to hear. But he gives a sharp, jerky nod. "I see. All right."

"Is it?" says Penny, because he seems like he's about to explode. "Is it really all right?"

"It is certainly feasible, from a scientific point of view," he mumbles. His fists have clenched. "But I have learned to separate myself from science, on occasion. She- you- she taught me that." He darts a fleeting look at Other Penny, his Penny, who's yelling at the TV through a mouthful of chips, a controller in her hands as the Other Guys egg her on. "And I- well-" He inhales, as if gathering strength, as if gathering the words from somewhere deep inside him. "Icannot conceive of a universe where I do not love you. Have always loved you. I refuse to believe in a world where this does not happen."

* * *

><p>But <em>how <em>did it happen? She asks Other Penny this, when her mirror self escorts her to the waiting SETI Institute vehicle.

"When I first saw your Earth, I was with Sheldon," Other Penny replies slowly. "I had a wicked hangover. We were arguing because I didn't drive him to his date with Amy the night before."

"Yeah," Penny murmurs. "I remember that day."

"I was shouting at him when I looked up and saw it. And I thought, holy _shit. _It was early, so there weren't a lot of people around. The street was quiet. We just stood there staring at your Earth- the same way you were probably staring at ours, right at that exact moment. And then… I don't know…"

They've stopped outside the apartment. The chauffeur from the Institute is standing by the car, holding the door open. But Penny ignores him. She's hanging on to every word.

"I remember thinking, it looks the same. Am I up there, too?" continues Other Penny. "I thought about the life I had, if it was better on a different planet. And I realized that, no, _I _wanted to have the better life. And I-"

* * *

><p>There is a world where Sheldon turns to Penny in the newfound shadow of another Earth. There is a world where Penny lets the moment pass, lets Sheldon come back to his senses and rush inside to check the news.<p>

But there is also a world where Penny decides to become a writer, decides to find new dreams and claim them, and, before that, Sheldon's eyes are as blue as the ocean and deep and dark with the things he cannot say. There is a world where Penny thinks, _To hell with it, _and kisses him.

* * *

><p>"Anyway," says Other Penny, grinning, shy yet somehow looking prouder and more fierce and real than Penny has ever seen herself look, "that's what happened. What about you? What did you do?"<p>

Penny shakes her head. Smiles sadly. "Nothing. Nothing at all."

* * *

><p>When she's back on her own planet, the first friend she sees is Amy, who drops in at lunch as Penny's sprawled out on the couch exhausted and wondering if space jetlag's an actual thing and what the cure for it is.<p>

"Did you meet the other me?" Amy asks.

"I visited all the other yous," says Penny. "The whole gang. Up there, you're breaking new ground in- zombies or whatever."

Amy's eyes gleam behind her thick lenses. "Are you by any chance referring to the effects of the parasite _Toxoplasma gondii _on the human neurological system?"

"Um, yeah?" That sounds about right, anyway. "You and Bernadette are working together."

"I _had _considered going into that line of research," Amy murmurs, excited and animated and- pretty. That's the thing about Amy Farrah Fowler. She's beautiful. It's the kind of beauty that sort of sneaks up before making itself known. "But there was never enough time to start, what with my current workload- but maybe-" She stops as another thought occurs to her. "Am I still with Sheldon?"

This is the part Penny's been dreading. She shakes her head.

Amy deflates. She _visibly _deflates. The vibrancy goes out of her and her shoulders sag and she draws further into herself.

And it sucks that on another Earth Penny violated, like, every single rule of friendship- well, that wasn't _her _her, but she's eaten alive by guilt, anyway. "Amy…"

"Maybe it's for the best." Amy pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Her face is a mass of conflicting emotions, like she's struggling to make some difficult inner choice. "Maybe the other Earth has the right idea."

"Sweetie, you don't mean that-"

"I do, Penny. I think." She raises her chin, stubborn and determined, eerily similar to Sheldon in the Mojave sunset when he was told that he couldn't live forever. The world is full of reflections; everyone in it is a mirror of everyone else. "When I was fifteen years old, I was a laughingstock. I will not be a laughingstock again."

Penny's brow creases. "I don't understand."

"It is futile to hold on to a relationship with someone who has other matters on his mind. Other people, in fact." Amy nods to herself, as if she has reached a decision. She folds her hands on her lap, gives Penny a level stare, every inch wounded yet unassailable. A queen without a kingdom. "I will not elaborate on how he acted while you were gone. Suffice it to say, the apocalypse would have been preferable. Do you _understand_ now?"

And Penny can't help but shake her head and exhale a weak laugh at the absurdity of it all. That Amy Farrah Fowler grew up and found her grace way before Penny, homecoming queen, ever could.

* * *

><p>There's this one time, see, when Sheldon confronts Penny in the laundry room. It's a few weeks after she gave up "their" laundry night for good, and at first he's indignant at the disruption in his routine, then condescending as he lectures her on why Saturday night is <em>the <em>optimal time to wash clothes.

And she can't tell him now, can she, that this is about more than laundry, this is about this weird inexplicable thing between them and Amy's slow-boiling resentment and-

"Sheldon," Penny grits out, "my world does not revolve around what's convenient for you."

He ignores her. He continues talking about the importance of schedules in a voice that grows progressively louder as if he's trying to drown out her words with his. But under the scientific bravado he looks bewildered and confused and… _young. _Blue-eyed and pale-skinned and sharp-jawed amidst the washing machines.

_I kind of love you, _Penny thinks, staring at him.

His hands flutter at his sides in agitation. "Penny," he says, "have I offended you without my knowledge? Have I committed some unforgivable breach of social protocol?"

She knows that what he really means is: _Why don't you play _Halo _with us anymore? What did I do wrong?_ Because over the years Sheldon Cooper has grown up and realized that the world is made up of more than just atoms, and he might not really _get _it, but he's willing to try.

Penny fights the urge to tackle him in a tight hug. _I'm so proud of you, sweetie. _"Relax, Sheldon," she tells him. "It's not you. This is all me."

"I don't understand." He sounds frustrated.

"I know," she sighs, turning away to retrieve her wet clothes. "I know you don't. It's okay." She is almost thirty years old and going nowhere, and she is tired and she has had her heart broken too many times to count. She will understand enough for both of them.

* * *

><p>And in another laundry room on another planet, different yet somehow still the same-<p>

"This tour is an exercise in futility," says a long-suffering Other Sheldon.

"Shut up." Penny grins. "This is _great."_

It's just the two of them because Other Penny was called in for a last-minute meeting with her film producers. Her fiancé stands stiffly by the washing machines as Penny looks around. She turns and sees him, and the scene is so familiar that it kind of hits her like a punch to the gut. This could almost be any other laundry night. He could almost be the Sheldon she knows.

"I came here for you, a long time ago," she quips with Best Actress panache. "Well, it wasn't here and that wasn't you. But I did anyway."

His blue eyes flicker. The corners of his mouth tilt upwards in a slight smile. "Issue number 70. The first in the _Wake _arc," he says. "My other self has taught you well."

* * *

><p>Two years ago, Sheldon appears at Penny's door with a stack of what suspiciously look like comic books.<p>

"This," he announces, "is the start of your graphic novel education." He's almost childlike in his excitement. He's beaming.

Penny catches a glimpse of the title. _Sandman. _"What's it about?" she asks, dubious.

"Dreams," Sheldon replies, uncharacteristically succinct.

It's all he needs to say. He knows her too well.

* * *

><p>A week after she returns from Earth 2, Penny starts to write.<p>

It's not a screenplay. When all's said and done, she's not her mirror self. She _thinks _it might be the beginning of a book. She's got countless stories inside her.

Sheldon and Leonard's living room becomes sort of like her base, because it's neat and organized and conducive to working. One weekend afternoon she's typing away on the couch, when the front door creaks open and Sheldon comes in. She's so engrossed in the scene that's unfolding from her fingers that she gives only the barest of nods as an acknowledgement, and she's only vaguely aware of him setting down his things and then coming towards her with slow, methodical precision.

"Penny."

She looks up.

His eyes are piercing blue in the sunlight, and he is tense and determined and it's like, Eat your heart out, Galveston, because _this _is the moment Sheldon Cooper becomes master of the universe.

"I have something to tell you," he says.

Penny's never been the type of girl who bursts into tears of relief. But she totally does, anyway.


End file.
